Gravity is also "just a theory", but I wouldn't advise jumping off of something tall without a parachute to test it.

As a species? I fear you generalise just a little too strongly. We are not all the same - all human beings are not the same as Americans - surprising as this may seem. Americans are currently 'exceptional' in their zest for empire, and lust for supremacy over the world's resources, compared to a lot of other societies.

And most importantly, the US is well placed to make some rational decisions to mitigate disaster. No-one 'needed' to travel vast distances for Thanksgiving, or indeed to go shopping on Friday. Most of the world's population has never flown, or even used a telephone. Many don't have clean drinking water. A little perspective would be useful.

Bob,

You're right. The Archbishop, being an Archbishop is part of long tradition going back millenia. This could be seen as a strength and a weakness. Depends on ones perspective.

I don't believe in the Golden Age either. I don't think Rowan Williams does either. However, he does seem to believe that the direction we're going in isn't particularly pleasant. I think he's more concerned about the future, than the past.

I must admit I rather like the Archbishop. He's a concientious and serious Christian. One of his biggest regrets is that he didn't actively put himself forward as a potential leader and focus of the opposition to the attack on Iraq. He feels he could have done more to prevent it. As such he is regarded with deep suspicion by the war-party.

I've also heard that he's somewhat sceptical of Tony Blair's professed "Christianity". There's a rumour that Blair is going convert and become a Catholic very soon, perhaps on his next visit to Rome. Clearly joining the Catholics doesn't make him super-popular with the Archbiship!

This is Big subject. I'm not trying to be definitive, just wondering. I would question the use of the word "morphed" though. Whilst one can argue that Rome declined over centuries and Byzantium continued for hundreds of years; one can also argue that the socalled "Byzantine Empire" was a very different kind of empire than Rome, and was really not an empire at all, but rather an important trading centre. A city-state where Roman values and culture survived behind virtually impregnable walls and not much else, but it's a huge subject to get into.

I'm also sceptical about the widespread idea that somehow the British Empire declined gracefully and is a model worthy of emulation. I heard the other day that Britain has the second largest military budget in the world, way lower than the United States, which is supreme, but spends more than Russia or China!

I think one can argue that Britain, in reality, destroyed itself and its empire by fighting two massive wars with the rising power of Germany for domination of Europe. At the end of WW2 it was a broken country, bankrupt, and so weakened economically, militarily, and politically, that it more or less became an American client-state, losing the real sovereignty it had supposedly fought Germany to preserve.

This kind of thinking is speculative and highly controversial, but I think worth considering. It's also a taboo subject in Britain. The British believe they won WW2. I'm not so sure. It seems they paid a collosal price for refusing the peace Germany was offering them. The deal they cut with the United States was arguably worse.

Burgundy,

I went back and had a look at the comments section you so kindly pasted. Now the comments seem not to be based on reading the Archbishop's full interview, as far as I can tell, but rather on very selective and shortened version of what he said presented by the Sunday Times.

The Sunday Times makes Rowan Williams seem like a loony, trendy, vicar. I think he's a serious, thinking, rational, Christian. His job is, after all, to think about Christianity and the role of the Anglican Church in the modern world.

A lot of the comments about his views seem very emotional indeed, especially many from the United States. Whereas Rowan Williams seems considered and thoughtful, lots of the comments are startlingly agressive and extraordinarilly vicious. It's like reading stuff the Nazi's said about people who disagreed with them, or Stalin's apologists, or Mao's followers. Whatever happened to civilized discourse! Are we all going mad! Can't we even discuss ideas now?

It seems like the core of Rowan William's argument is this whole idea that violence is an effective solution to complecated problems. He questions this profoundly. I think it's good that Christian leader has the courage to do this. It's just rather scary that so many people react with such violent rhetoric to a man who, after all, is only asking us to stop, think, and consider; whether violence and war, are really the answer.

The day after 9/11, I sent an e-mail to some friends arguing that, in fact, the British empire ceased to be profitable long before it ceased to exist, or even ceased to grow. Before 1857 India was actually controlled by a private corporation, the East India Company, which crapped in its own nest a few times too many and had to deal with a large rebellion by calling in the ultimate government bailout. This is a fantastic example of privatizing profits while socializing costs. The old system was profitable because the Company wasn't held responsible for the welfare of the various Indian publics. But as a governmentally-organized occupier, the British crown got stuck with the cost of welfare instead of the defeated princes. Private firms that could exploit the new system could profit, and ordinary Britons were bribed with the most seductive of opiates, the idea that a poor white man could move to a colony and exploit many non-whites for his fortune. Perhaps the Crown prized both these motivations all along. In any case, Britain got away with it for 90 years before withdrawing.

So we shouldn't assume the American public will see the holistic unprofitability of our current project as long as Halliburton is selling stock and hiring truck drivers with 6-figure salaries. Or as long as the empire serves as a cornerstone for certain ideologies that are much more important to America's cohesive identity than the current costs.

Then so mote it be.

"...And outside in the distance, [a wildcat did growl], four two riders were approaching, and the wind began to howl..."

from John Wesley Harding, 1967